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Cold soups: the beginner's guide

Cold cumber soup is a cool, creative starter. (Photo: Tower Girl)

 

Writer Fran Lebowitz once wrote about the difficulty in serving cold soups: "More often than not the dinner guest is left with the impression that had he only come in a little earlier he could have gotten it while it was still hot." It's true that chilled soup seems unusual at first. Once you taste it, though, you realize that it's a different thing altogether from hot soup, just as frozen coffee drinks are entirely different from your steaming morning java.

During hot weather, a cool soup appetizer is a welcome start to any meal, and it's certainly a refreshing alternative to the ubiquitous lackluster tossed salads. The following five represent some of the most popular types.

Gazpacho

The Spanish tomato-based soup is a cinch to make with raw vegetables, so you can actually use the food processor to make your soup instead of a hot oven. It's also a handy way to make use of your excess garden veggies, and nothing tastes better with a hunk of crusty French bread.

Ina Garten's Gazpacho Recipe

Vichysoisse

Pronounced VISH-EE-SWAZ, the classic cold potato soup is often associated with elegant French cooking. It's invention, however, is usually credited to a chef at New York's City's Ritz-Carlton. Either way, its origins are distinctly upper crust. Anthony Bourdain credits vichysoisse for igniting his lifelong passion for food when he tasted it at age 9.

Anthony Bourdain's Vichysoisse Recipe

Chilled Fruit Soups

Luscious cold fruit soups made with ripe seasonal fruits are a teasing starter to a meal, but they also make good desserts. The combinations are endless, from peach and melon soup to strawberry pear. Single fruit soups can take advantage of the best of the farmer's market, or show off your own home-grown goodies.

Emeril Lagasse's Summer Fruit Soup Recipe

Cucumber Dill Soup

You can be as cool as the proverbial cucumber yourself with a chilled bowl of cucumber soup. While some versions are made with a base of creamy yogurt, others are made with a simple stock. What they all have in common is fresh dill, the perfect complement to the crisp, clean taste of the cucumbers.

Ernest Hemingway's Mother's Cold Cucumber Soup Recipe

Avocado Soup

We're used to munching on avocados at the beginning of a meal, just usually in the form of guacamole. An avocado soup, flavored with garlic, pepper, and lime juice, is a chance to get the creamy taste of avocado without also gorging yourself on chips. It works beautifully with a Tex-Mex dinner.

The New York Times' Chilled Avocado Soup Recipe

Studies have shown that people who begin their meals with soup consume less food overall, which is yet another reason to add a cold soup to your repertoire this summer. Try serving one of these tempting chilled soup favorites at your next dinner party, and your guests will agree that cool is the next hot thing.

-Liz Kelly